Grow HomeReview

In a lot of ways, Grow Home is a delight. It’s beautiful, original, fluid, and completely charming. It’s a game about climbing, platforming, and exploration, but quickly became much more than that the moment I walked my adorably childlike robot character off a floating island and free-fell thousands of feet before swooping in to a safe landing on a leaf glider. Even though I have a personal discomfort with heights, this game made me feel happy as I climbed into its sky.

Exit Theatre Mode

Its charm comes across immediately upon touching down in this gorgeous, vivid, polygonal new world. The flat but colorful look strikes a balance between memories of the Nintendo 64 adventures of yore and the emotive design of Pixar animation. Everything is bright, bold, and bursting with personality.

And B.U.D., (Botanical Utility Droid) is a fantastic example of how movement can speak volumes more than words, thanks to the procedurally generated animations that power his arms and legs. You’ll push him one way, then change directions mid-stride and watch as he struggles to shift his course against momentum without losing balance, the same way a child might grapple with their own mass and motion.

Of course, those animations – like anything generated on the fly – come with their own quirks. The plucky robot’s feet are in a constant state of motion, and more often than not, unnatural contortion. His many parts will sometimes knot themselves, turning the bipedal B.U.D. into more of a ball of scrap. It’s never more than a minor annoyance, and usually occurs in tight spaces and snaps back shortly thereafter, but it does detract from the otherwise smooth, serene nature of Grow Home.

That childlike element is reinforced by the onboard counterpart M.O.M., which encourages you whether you reach new heights or shatter on the ground at the end of a lengthy freefall at terminal velocity and rematerialize at the last checkpoint. That maternal vein that runs through Grow Home adds to the sense of serenity. Though gravity and your own miscalculations are your greatest enemy, this world is a safe playground through which to climb and jump and soar and dive.

Climbing the giant plant that you must nurture into providing you a way to the heavens uses an unusual but quickly intuitive control setup. Each of B.U.D’s arms is independently controlled with the corresponding mouse buttons or triggers, so climbing becomes a matter of holding onto the terrain with one hand, pushing yourself upward, gripping with the other hand, and repeat. While it’s certainly reminiscent of games that are intentionally clumsy for comedy purposes (like I Am Bread and Octodad) I didn’t feel like Grow Home wanted me to fail at this. Grabbing terrain and objects boils movement down to its most basic elements, and learning to use them was like experiencing the world as a child. Left hand, right hand.

Though in the beginning, scrambling up cliffsides might feel like a herculean feat, eventually it becomes second nature, and new elements like flower parachutes, leaf-gliders, and catapults create new ways to float and fall and frolick throughout the world. After a few hours I gathered enough of the scattered power crystals to unlock new powers ranging from a life-saving jetpack to an expanded camera view, allowing for a wider view of your surroundings and the hidden crystals therein, both of which changed the way I played and kept the steady upward climb from becoming too repetitive.

While you can “finish” Grow Home in around three hours, the exploration of discovering each hidden cave and collecting all the crystals can stretch that experience much longer – nearly a dozen hours in my case. However, once you’ve collected the power crystals and successfully grown your way home, there’s little reason to return outside of achievement chasing. B.U.D.’s movements are dynamically generated, but the world around him is the same every time.

The Verdict

Hopping through the floaty gravity and feel-good physics of Grow Home is as pleasant a gaming experience as they come. Dangling hundreds of meters above the ground while I stretched to reach a crystal induces some mild anxiety, but when you've collected those crystals and unlocked B.U.D.’s full range of abilities, free falling becomes almost meditative. It’s not particularly long, or dense, or even deep, but what it does it does exceptionally well, and doesn't have to resort to filler. This risky little game is completely comfortable in its own skin, and that makes it a joy to play.